2010 IRRI Rice Conference

November 9, 2010
Prepared Remarks by Prabhu Pingali, deputy director of the Agricultural Development Policy and Statistics

In 1997 I published a book (with Mahabub Hossain and Roberta Gerpacio) titled – Asian Rice Bowls: the Returning Crisis? At that time we described the supply and demand conditions under which we could anticipate a rice crisis in Asia, but we were relatively optimistic that we could avert a crisis because of anticipated long term changes on the demand and the supply side. On the demand side, we thought that rising incomes and the consequent fall in per capita rice consumption due to diet diversification, in association with a leveling off of population growth rates in Asia, would reduce, over the long run, the pressure on rice consumption. We anticipated that the rate of growth in rice demand would continue to be positive but would not be rising. On the supply side, we anticipated that continued technology change on farmers’ fields would lead to sustained productivity growth and hence keep the rice market in equilibrium and real rice prices low.  We worried about rising environmental & climate stresses, but felt that growing public awareness, policy reforms and technology based solutions would help rice farmers cope with these stresses. We believed that society could gear itself up to sustainably address the problems of rice farmers and consumers.

I am not so sure anymore! The rice price crisis of 2008; the persistence of poverty and malnutrition, particularly in South Asia; the impending resource crisis, particularly with respect to water; and the as yet uncertain consequences of climate change for smallholder rice farmers, all make me want to reassess my past prognosis—which was generally positive—on the state of the rice economy in Asia. As we celebrate 50 years of IRRI, and essentially 50 years of rice research in Asia, we need to ask ourselves why we are not further along in our quest for hunger and poverty reduction and what can we do to turn this situation around.

The Rice price crisis of 2008 was a nasty wakeup call to all of us who had become complacent about the ability of Asia to manage its food policy and its food security.  The problem at the time of the food crisis was not that there were not enough rice supplies, but given the thinness of the rice market an anticipated downward movement in traded volumes led to a sharp spike in rice prices and subsequent reactions by other traditional exporting countries aggravated the situation. During the crisis, we rice scientists and economists found ourselves in unfamiliar territory, the problem we were facing was political not technical or economic, one for which we did not have tools to deal with.  In the words of Peter Timmer, “Supply and demand in the world rice market are a direct result of political decisions in a number of Asian Countries” . The reality of the “politics of rice” hit home during the crisis and so did the realization that we don’t have a functioning mechanism for governing global food markets. What we saw in 2008 can easily happen again and despite no obvious disequilibrium in the global rice market. Unfortunately, we will not be able to do anything about it this time around also.  If I were to write the Rice Bowls today, I would dwell on the political economy of the rice in significant detail.

Despite substantial progress in agricultural productivity in the 20th century, the stubborn persistence of poverty and hunger, particularly in South Asia, puzzles me.  50 years of rice research and development have not brought significant changes to the lives of poor populations in the so called marginal environments and to the marginalized populations even in the better off environments. Rural poverty continues to be high despite dramatic rice productivity growth over the past five decades. So where are we going wrong? IS it a problem of technology development, or one of “taking it to the farmer”? I suspect also, that we have not taken the institutional & social constraints to poverty alleviation seriously enough to make a difference. Poor smallholder households, often women headed, without the physical assets, with poor human capital, poor financial means and low social status cannot benefit from technological solutions provided to them.  If I were to write the Rice Bowls today, I would dwell on the stickiness of the poverty problem in Asia and look for a broader approach for addressing the problem.

During the decade of the 1990s issues related to environmental degradation related to intensive rice systems were being taken seriously, we made significant progress in reducing the environmental trade-offs in some areas, most notably in reducing the use of insecticides and thereby deriving environmental and human health benefits. Technology and better management practices had an important role to play here and so did policy reform, especially the removal of pesticide subsidies and banning highly toxic chemicals. We identified water as another area of major concern, both competition for water, as well as negative externalities of intensive rice systems on water – draw down of water tables, water induced degradation of paddy lands, etc.  Widespread adoption of water efficient rice production technologies is still a distant dream. Why? We have the technologies and management practices, but our ability to influence the policy process and to get water pricing right and electricity pricing right has been extremely limited.  Once again our lack of understanding of political economy has reduced our impact on the ground.  We better get this right before stresses of climate change really kick in.

If I were writing the “Rice Bowls” today, I would still celebrate the role of research and technology for addressing the problems of hunger and poverty, but I would insist, more strongly than I have, that by themselves they will not be able to provide widespread impact on the ground.  It’s only by understanding, the economic, institutional and the political context in which farmers operate will we see true impact. If “Rice is Life”, as they say in Asia, then let’s get the “Life” part right.